The Montgomery Baseball Blog

 

BISCUITS ROLLERCOASTER FIRST HALF WINDING DOWN

The Montgomery roster is in its usual state of midseason flux, with occasional trouble in the bullpen and limited starting pitching. And of course theres plenty of catching and middle infield gloves to spare. A long streak of playing lousy has the Skitz on the ropes for the first half, no surprise to longtime Montgomery fans who have seen the team rally in the second half in about a half dozen recent campaigns.

Greg Jones was promoted and the general consensus is that the Biscuits are a better team without him. Hitting around .220 for most of the season, Greg has enough speed to steal 40 bags but can barely make enough contact to get on base enough to swipe half that. Jones views himself as a multi-talented infielder/outfielder with power and speed, but in fact his hits are to be found on the ground instead of the launch-angle routine flyouts and weak contact grounders we saw in his time in the Gump.

Hitting up and down the order, Jones was given every chance to thrive and then tossed to Triple-A to sink or swim. The talent is there but unless he learns to make contact Greg Jones will have trouble carving out a career.

Sean Hunley, the league leader in fewest baserunners per inning, was promoted to Durham, then sent back. Mason Montgomery and Cole Wilcox are fantastic hurlers but the Skitz are hurting the deeper into the rotation you look. Hunley is a welcome return.

Also on the silver lining end of things, Mason Auer and Evan Edwards have broken out of season-long slumps, injecting much needed baserunners onto the pillows. Newguys have arrived to reinforce the ranks and help sweep the infield clean of baserunners. Infielder Junior Caminero has potential and Gionti Turner also adds a versatile glove to the infield mix.

FRESH NEWS FROM AROUND THE PARK

Two items of interest in and around the ballpark - first up, a dead armadillo was spotted on the railroad tracks beyond the outfield fence. Not a big deal now, but by the next homestand everyone will know if it has been left to decay. *update* be on the lookout - the funk is already starting to creep in!

In other news we hear that Biscuits announcer Chris Adams-Wall will get the promotion to the bigleagues next month. Of course this means a new voice in the radio booth for Montgomery. No word yet on the replacement, and of course we wish Chris the best in his adventures!

This weekend the Biscuits got a visit from Ben Hill, author of the popular minor league blog Bens Biz. Ben was here in 2015 and I enjoyed catching up with him during rain delay that preceded the rain-shortened second game of the days doubleheader. 

 

The pre-tacked MLB baseballs the Southern League has been using in the first half will go away. For the second half of the season teams will use MLB baseballs prepared with the more traditional rubbing mud. Pitchers I talked to had less concern about using pretacked baseballs versus mud, but were unanimous in being unhappy as guinea pigs in a lab experiment that required a mid-season change in something so important as how the baseball is gripped.

INSTAGRAM

Dude I have no clue over there. But I post pictures. I am terrible with tagging or hashtags or witty captions. If you are down for Biscuits baseball and Montgomery history images, I invite you to check out the IG since I am obviously slacking here! Same name, DrMiraculous is easy to find.

The pics here today are all classics from the files because blogspot has made it a little more difficult to upload. I will try to get it back to normal as we move into the second half!

HISTORY CONFERENCE COMING

I met with the State Department of Archives last week and previously talked with the Biscuits front office and I am happy to report we seem to be progressing well towards the 2024 Southern Baseball Research Conference. 

The Archives Dept is awesome and I was allowed to view some of early baseball cards in their collection, which may be displayed during the conference. If you are a baseball card fan, their exhibit will be nothing short of breathtaking.  

We have a speaker - tentatively, a former MLB pitcher who was a Montgomery Rebel! With an assist from the Biscuits, though the scheduled date might be a factor so we probably can't throw his name out there.

 

My presentation is slowly progressing. Focusing on a whole team is not my usual M.O. but I think it will come together nicely the time its due. Already I have learned lots about my chosen subject that I previously didn't know, but that is not at all unusual. The more you learn the more you realize you don't know!

We are also working to include a tour of Montgomery's three standing structures that have hosted MLB exhibition games. I'm not sure how many other cities can make that claim, but with Riverwalk, Paterson Field and Cramton Bowl all closely situated near the Archives Dept it's hoped that a field trip can be included.